Studies have shown that pregnant women who smoke increase the risk of their children having asthma, and that those children—even if non-smokers—can pass it on to their own children.
There have been few objective studies that evaluated the effects of vaping nicotine while pregnant. This week, investigators from The Lundquist Institute (LI) received a $2.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to research the multi-generational effect of vaping, or smoking an electronic cigarette, while pregnant.
Using established models for the study, investigators will determine whether e-cigarette vapor increases the risk of asthma in the offspring of pregnant mice. They will go on to test whether those offspring, who will not be exposed to e-cigarettes, bear an increased risk of giving birth to offspring with asthma, according to a press release.
The study will also assess the effects of nicotine and e-cigarette flavorings on viability and the epigenetic memory of germ cells, seeking to determine how these new flavoring technologies affect cells.